This invention relates to a method for winding a belt-shaped member around a tire forming drum.
As a method and an apparatus hitherto used for winding a belt-shaped member, those disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,411,975 have been known. The apparatus includes a conveyor for supplying a belt-shaped member, for example, a tread rubber onto a tire forming drum and a plurality of rollers for bringing a center of a width of a belt-shaped member on the conveyor into a coincidence with a reference position of the tire forming drum, for example, a center of the drum in width directions. While the center of the belt-shaped member in the width directions is caused to be coincident with the reference position of the forming drum by means of the rollers, the belt-shaped member is supplied onto the forming drum to wind the member around the forming drum.
In such a winding method and an apparatus, however, although the center of the belt-shaped member along its longitudinal direction can be securely in coincidence with the reference position of the forming drum. A leading end and a trailing end of the belt-shaped member in the longitudinal directions are restrained from moving around only to a lesser extent so that the leading and trailing ends are likely to be shifted even when they are brought into coincidence with the reference position of the forming drum. As a result, the leading and trailing ends of the belt-shaped member wound around the forming drum are slightly shifted to lower the uniformity of a produced tire. In order to prevent such a fact, the shifting of the ends in the width directions is often corrected manually by an operator. However, such a manual correction will unavoidably lower the operation efficiency.